New businesses

Spice is right as Indonesian startups eye value in vanilla / REPORTAGE

Jakarta - Indonesian Sofa Arbiyanto had a manufacturing job in South Korea two years ago when he learned about the high price of vanilla on the global market, and decided to try his luck at growing it. Now he has 2,000 vanilla vines on a 1,200-sq-metre (0.3-acre) farm in Blora, Central Java, started after he did some internet research and joined online groups of vanilla farmers

Fransiska Nangoy and Bernadette Christina
Post Covid-19

Iron ore, Rio Tinto sees China demand recovery

Rio Tinto on Friday reported a 1.5% rise in iron ore shipments for the second quarter and said demand for the steelmaking ingredient was improving in China as its economy recovers from the coronavirus outbreak

Post-Covid

China's export slump to ease in June

The slump in China’s exports likely eased in June as some countries reopened their economies, while imports contracted less sharply on higher crude oil and commodities purchases, a Reuters poll shows

commodities

“Made in Italy loses 20% in US market as result of tariffs”

Coldiretti reports. The benefit from the situation is for the lobby linked to the US dairy industry (CCFN) which has explicitly asked with a letter to impose taxes on imports of European cheeses to favor the fake Made in Italy industry and force the Union European to open the borders to the fake Italian food made in US

commodities

SGM celebrates 10 years of change

Genoa - From wholesale food market to a centre for advanced logistics services: 10 years after its move from the city centre to the area of Bolzaneto, the fruit and vegetable market of Genoa, managed by SGM (Società Gestione Mercato), opens its doors to the public. The opening will be on Saturday, 14 September Genoa

commodities

Merkel’s Bavarian allies snub her coal exit plan

Berlin - Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies have called for Germany to phase out coal by 2030 but the government has insisted on keeping its 2038 target, in the latest sign of strain within her coalition.

commodities

U.S. Supreme Court turns away challenge to Trump steel tariffs

Washington - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported steel brought by an industry group that argued that a key part of the law under which he imposed the duties violates the U.S. Constitution.

commodities

U.S. farmers experimenting with hemp as China trade war drags on

Washington - A cousin of cannabis plants that produce marijuana, hemp is used in products ranging from food to building materials and cannabidiol, or CBD oil, which is being touted as a treatment for everything from sleeplessness to acne to heart disease.

Reuters
commodities

China’s May coal imports climb 8.6% from month before

Beijing - China’s May coal imports rose 8.6% from the month before to 27.47 million tonnes, customs data showed on Monday, the highest level since January as power utilities boosted purchases ahead of summer.

commodities

Malaysia to send back plastic waste to foreign nations / GALLERY

Port Klang - Malaysia will send back some 3,300 tons of non-recyclable plastic waste to countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia in a move to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich nations, Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said Tuesday

commodities

Ukraine says martial law not affecting Azov Sea grain exports

Kiev - The imposition of martial law is not affecting Ukrainian grain shipments from ports on the Azov Sea so far and if necessary they can be diverted to the Black Sea, Ukraine’s acting agriculture minister says. More broadly, the prospects for grain exports from the Azov Sea are unclear at this point

Pavel Polityuk
commodities

US says India paid bigger cotton subsidies than WTO allows

Geneva - The U.S. assessment of India’s market price support (MPS) for cotton said New Delhi was allowed to pay out up to 10 percent of the value of production, but the actual figure had ranged from 53 percent to 81 percent since 2010.

By Tom Miles
commodities

Bosnia police detain coke plant manager after environmental breaches

Sarajevo - Bosnia’s regional police on Friday detained the general manager of the Balkans’ leading metallurgical coke producer Global Ispat Koksna Industrija Lukavac (GIKIL) which was ordered to halt operations the previous day accused of environmental negligence.

commodities

Israel seeks re-tender of mining rights into Dead Sea / GALLERY

Ein Bokek - The Dead Sea is shrinking at the rate of about a meter a year, leaving behind deserted beaches and sinkholes in a slow-motion environmental disaster. The main culprit is the drying up of the Jordan river, its main tributary, as communities upstream draw on it for farming and drinking

Ari Rabinovitch
commodities

Qatar’s food giant invests $500 mln in Sudan

Doha - Qatar’s Hassad Food has announced its plan to invest 500 million U.S. dollarsin the agricultural and food sector in Sudan over the next three years. The announcement came after Hassad, the wholly owned subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority, signed a mutual agreement with a Sudanese company

commodities

Di Maio: «I’ll explore Ilva plan in depth»

Rome - Meetings continue to be positive, the minister is listening to everyone, but there is still no solution for the future of ILVA and one will not come soon. The Deputy Prime Minister himself, Luigi Di Maio, made this clear when he announced further work is needed

commodities

French farmers to stage refinery blockade

Paris - French farmers will start a blockade of oil refineries and fuel depots on Sunday evening in protest at plans by Total to use imported palm oil at a biofuel facility, a move that has fanned farmer discontent over unfair competition

commodities

Trade rows spell gain, and pain, for U.S. grain exporters

Chicago - Global grain marketers have seized upon trade tensions between the United States and several of its top export markets, including China, to turn around struggling trading units following one of the toughest years ever for the industry.

By Karl Plume and P.J. Huffstutter
commodities

Metals and sugar face freight rate surge

Paris - Dry bulk freight rates for the smaller sizes of ship are likely to rise significantly over the next three years as demand is expected to outstrip supply, a shipping analyst said Thursday. New orders for Handysize, Handymax and Supramax vessels were at extremely low levels

commodities

Oil, gold to gain on Syrian strikes

London - Gold and oil will extend their gains on Monday, albeit modestly, when the markets open for the first time since Western powers launched a missile attack on Syria but equities and bonds are unlikely to suffer big losses unless the West strikes again or Russia retaliates

Vidya Ranganathan, Jan Harvey and Dmitry Zhdannikov
commodities

China steel exports may fall further in 2018

Beijing - Chinese exports of steel products may continue to fall this year due to strong domestic demand and reductions in capacity due to environmental commitments, the chairman of state-owned mill Fujian Sangang Group said.

commodities

Acquisition by Italmatch

Genova - Italmatch Chemicals(€400 million in revenue and six production plants in Europe) acquired the Jiayou Chemical Company, which is active in the production and sale of phosphonate additives, from the Ecolab Group, a world leader in technologies and services for water, hygiene and energy

commodities

Orsero, Ebitda reached 31 million euro

Savona - The Board of Directors of the Orsero Group has conducted a reviewof its consolidated financial data at 31 December 2017, with the aim of presenting a financial picture following the acquisition of all the remaining subscribed capital from firms Hermanos Fernández López, Fruttital Firenze and Galandi

commodities

Aferpi: sale date postponed as Jindal stalls

Piombino - Jindal drags its feet, and the sale of Algerian owned Inferpi steel, based in Piombino, remains on hold. Following the announcement of what seemed like a done deal for the sale of the steel mill on part of Algeria-based Cevital to India’s Jindal

commodities

ILVA: government protects Cornigliano plant

Genoa - ILVA’s Genoa workers have been recognised by the company’s Programme Agreement, in which one of the binding points is a guarantee of upholding employment levels in exchange for the concession of 1.2 million sqm of land to ILVA’s holding company.

Gilda Ferrari
commodities

Glencore bets big on car battery metals

London - Glencore has increased production of the metals used to make electric car batteries faster than its major mining rivals, according to an industry-wide analysis that shows the scale of a strategy that has big prospective risks and rewards

Barbara Lewis and Maiya Keidan
commodities

“3M: five companies interested in acquisition”

Predosa - Production will not stop on 30 November. That date has been put back to 15 December; however, a buyer has yet to be found. The fate of the 42 workers at 3M, formerly Grafoplast in Predosa, the leading company in the production of electric wire markers, is still hanging by a thread

commodities

Mittal to bring ILVA research centre to Genoa

Genova - The business plan will be unveiled -and discussed - next Thursday, but AM Investco Italy’s (Arcelor Mittal and Marcegaglia’s) plan to set up a research centre in Taranto is well known. Even to the unions. So the Genoese secretaries of UILM and FIM CISL are now asking for the centre to be built in Genoa

Simone Gallotti
commodities

Genoa, a drug trafficking destination

Genova - The ship’s course, as recorded in the logbook aboard the container vessel seized by Italy’s Finance Police in the port of Gioia Tauro, was pretty accurate. From Calabria, in a matter of a few hours, the ship carrying the Tramadol cargo, known also as “the fighter drug”, would have sailed straight to Genoa

Tommaso Fregatti
commodities

ILVA: Calenda and Region clash

Genoa - Tense times for ‘Made in Italy’ steel. There is no shortage of complications from Taranto to Piombino.

Gilda Ferrari
commodities

ILVA: 4,000 redundancies, 10,000 remain

Genova - The dispute over Ilva has been burning hotter since the controlled bankruptcyat the Italian steel group which was once owned by the Riva family. Nowadays the facility belongs to the chain Am InvestCo, controlled by the Franco-Indian ArcelorMittal Group

commodities

“ArcelorMittal is ignoring trade unions”

Genova - As negotiations on the layoffs announced by Am Investco in connection with the acquisition of Ilva S.p.A. are likely to start on October 9, tensions are rising at the union. Fiom Cgil union expressed its concern for “the picture that emerged at a Paris meeting of the Governing Board of the Industries

commodities

Ferrero research centre opens in Manhattan

Alba - New York will soon get another jewel of Italian excellence.In September Ferrero plans to bring its open innovation science division to Cornell University’s Roosevelt Island campus, nestled in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens

commodities

U.S. trade envoy Lighthizer says NAFTA has “failed” Americans

Washington - “We need to ensure that the huge trade deficits do not continue and we have balance and reciprocity. This should be periodically reviewed,” Lighthizer said in opening remarks at NAFTA negotiations in Washington.

Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Nick Zieminski
commodities

Traceability to protect “Made in Italy” brand

Rome - When you speak with those who carry out the food inspections,the answer is always the same: if the product is Italian you can be sure. Of course, there is always an exception, one finds producers who do things that are wrong, but it is precisely that, an exception to the rule

commodities

Insecticide in eggs: seizures in Emilia Romagna

Bologna - The omelettes were made in the Netherlands and Belgium. But the contaminated dishes may have ended up on tables in 15 countries, including Italy. The danger goes by a name that is difficult to pronounce: it is called “Fluocyanobenpyrazole”, and it is the most important ingredient in a deadly insecticide

commodities

U.S. coal exports soar, in boost to Trump energy agenda, data shows

London - . The increased shipments came as the European Union and other U.S. allies heaped criticism on the Trump administration for its rejection of the Paris Climate Accord, a deal agreed by nearly 200 countries to cut carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal.

Timothy Gardner and Nina Chestney
commodities

Saudi Arabia bans Egyptian strawberries

Ryadh - Saudi Arabia is banning imports of Egyptian strawberries due to pesticide residues, said Abdel Hamid al-Demerdash, the head of Egypt’s Agriculture Export Council, the latest such ban to hit Egypt as it struggles to revive its economy

commodities

British Steel, new logistics centre in Lecco

Lecco - British Steel is expanding its activities in the European railway sector by openinga new logistics centre in Italy for the production of long length rails. The company - a key supplier of Italy’s state rail operator Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) - has just inaugurated a plant in Lecco

commodities

Coal companies return to U.S. leveraged loan market

Washington - Rising coal prices and a more favorable outlook for the industry under President Donald Trump’s administration are allowing U.S. coal companies to sign new leveraged loans after being shut out of the market since mid-2015, despite a declining long-term outlook for the industry.

commodities

Died of exhaustion, six “caporali” arrested

Andria - On 13 July 2015 Paola Clemente,49, died from overwork in the fields around Andria (Puglia). She died from exhaustion: putting in twelve-hour days for a wage of less than thirty euro. Her death prompted Trani’s prosecutor to open an investigation that yesterday led to the arrest of six individuals

Car. Fes.
commodities

China to suspend all imports of coal from North Korea

Shanghai - China will suspend all imports of coal from North Korea starting Feb. 19, the country’s commerce ministry said in a notice posted on its website on Saturday, as part of its efforts to implement United Nations sanctions against the country.

commodities

ILVA, 5,000 on wage guarantees

Genoa - The ILVA group will lay off 5,000 workers in Italy: 4,984 from the Taranto plant, where 10,974 are employed in the integrated steelworks, and 80 (in other words everyone) at the logistical centre in Marghera, where the product from Taranto is unloaded and loaded onto ships.

Gilda Ferrari
commodities

Lactalis makes full takeover offer for Parmalat

Milan - Parmalat is prepared to definitively leave the Milan Stock Exchange, after five years of minimal presence, with exchanges reduced because the shares available for trading were limited to 12.26% of the capital after Lactalis’s 2011 takeover bid

commodities

“The ILVA sale is of interest for Cornigliano”

Milan - “Investments in ILVA’s vertical products are an essential element of the industrial plan. We must push for verticalization. In Genoa, the future manager will find the new galvanisation line 5, in which we have invested over €8 million, and tin-plate line 4 revamped for €400,000

From our correspondent Gilda Ferrari
commodities

Trade defence against Chinese dumping

Brussels - The European Commission proposed on Wednesday a new way to assess whether Chinese manufacturers are exporting products such as steel at unfairly low prices in response to Beijing’s demand for change by the end of the year

Philip Blenkinsop
commodities

ILVA sale, Gnudi: “October? It’s premature”

Rome - The sale of ILVA to private investors is being delayed until 2017. Special Commissioner Piero Gnudi is ruling out the possibility of selling the group in October and is extending the time frame until the first months of the new year

commodities

Ilva, joint plan B: Arvedi-CDP-Delfin

Genoa - The Board of Directors of publicly controlled joint-stock companyCassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) has scheduled a meeting for this morning. On the table is plan B of the consortium led by Giovanni Arvedi for the lease/purchase of the Ilva steel plants in Taranto, Genoa and Novi Ligure

Gilda Ferrari
commodities

“Ilva? We are the ideal solution”

Genoa - The comments came yesterday from the Franco-Indian giant ArcelorMittal, and on Wednesday, 22 June, it will be the turn of Turkey’s Erdemir Group.

Gilda Ferrari
commodities

ILVA, €847 million invested in the environment

Rome - The updated figures disclosed by ILVA’s receivership commissioners – Piero Gnudi, Corrado Carrubba and Enrico Laghi - in their report of 24 March, go as far as 30 November 2015.

commodities

ILVA: €300 mln bridging loan also in E.U. sights

Genoa - The bridging loan worth €300 million that was granted to ILVA by the Italian Government last December is now also in the sights of the European Commission because it is suspected to be State Aid provided in violation of E.U. regulations and therefore distorting competition

commodities

Commodity slump pushes Africa back into IMF’s embrace

Johannesburg - Falling commodity prices have pushed several African countries back into the embrace of the International Monetary Fund, which has an opportunity to push for reforms and inject transparency into opaque economies.

commodities

Rivers turn to dust as drought bites Somalia / REPORTAGE

Mogadishu - Somalia’s bread basket has become a dust bowl as the life-giving watersof the mighty Shabelle river run dry amid intense drought in the war-torn country. River-fed farmlands have become parched playgrounds for children who kick footballs beneath a cloudless sky

commodities

Ilva, an Italian maxi-consortium could emerge / FOCUS

Genoa - Which Italian company, even a large one, has the necessary and sufficient funds? Marceglia and Arvedi believe they can do it, but most union sources think that the weight of the operation cannot be supported by either of these two groups alone.

Simone Gallotti
commodities

Commodities stocks help European equities to bounce back

London - European equities bounced back on Tuesday from sharp declines in the previous two sessions as energy stocks tracked higher crude oil prices and steel makers gained following a European Commission move on Chinese and Russian steel imports.

commodities

G20 spends 4 times more on fossil fuel than on renewables

Ankara - The G20 countries spend almost four times as much to prop up fossil fuel production as they do to subsidise renewable energy, calling into question their commitment to halting climate change, a think tank said on Thursday The G20 spent an average $78 billion on national subsidies

commodities

“Climate qualms mean oil will never be used up”

London - Concerns about the climate change impact of burning the world’s remaining oil resources mean the reserves will never be fully exploited, BP Chief Economist Spencer Dale said on Tuesday.

commodities

Trouble looms for developing countries / FOCUS

London - Slumping commodity prices pose a serious challenge to economic and political stability in developing economies across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

John Kemp
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